


the shortest distance between two points

by icarusandtheson



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Monster!Alex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: Washington's crew finds their way into deep space. Hamilton isn't taking to it well.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton & George Washington, Alexander Hamilton/George Washington
Comments: 11
Kudos: 44





	the shortest distance between two points

**Author's Note:**

> for the anon on tumblr, who got in the last prompt of 2019. anon wanted scifi!wham with captain!gw and crew member!alex. happy new year, everyone.

The observation deck is dimmed and silent around him; the ship hums under his feet like some great, sleeping thing, and the dull ache at the back of his skull throbs in time with it. A lurching sense of vertigo keeps him from focusing on any one point; there’s only the starless dark and the pressure building in his head. It’s muted, at least -- will stay muted, as long as he keeps moving, as long as he doesn’t face the perfect, infinite blank behind his eyes that puts the endless expanse outside to shame. 

The door sounds, the high clear noise of recognized access jarring the quiet, jarring him. Misplaced paranoia. Nothing inside the ship is going to hurt him. He reaches for the comfort that assurance should bring him, and in its place is just emptiness, absence and the vague sense of falling. 

Light floods in, an artificial sunrise. His headache spikes, sharp like teeth sinking in, then dulls again: a pressed-on bruise, a wound trying to heal. Alex can see his own reflection, spectral against the vast dark, sees Washington’s broad frame in the doorway. 

Alex straightens, turns -- halfway only, he keeps his back to the wall, not the void. He folds his hands carefully behind his back, finds the notch in his wrist with his thumb and presses down. His pulse thrums under the skin, regular and steady. “Sir.” 

His captain makes a soft, tired sound at the back of his throat. “Hamilton,” he says, distinctly unsurprised. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

It isn’t any time, really, not even by the most basic definition. They’re so, so far from any star large enough to approximate a sun, from any of the bases that the ship keeps time to mirror. The lighting shifts over a continuous twenty-four-hour cycle to ease the strain on the crew’s circadian rhythms, but it’s not real, not in the same way the dark outside is. 

“It’s late, sir,” Alex says, because he knows it’s the answer Washington is looking for. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You can tell me what you’re doing here at this hour.” 

“I couldn’t sleep.” It’s the truth, but Alex has to hold himself still as Washington takes his measure despite it, afraid his captain will see something that he can’t, that he doesn’t want to see. 

Washington’s gaze weighs him down, his eyes a different sort of dark. “Is something the matter?”

“No, sir.” 

Washington doesn’t press any further, but lingers in the doorway for a moment. Not hesitant, exactly, that’s never been his way, but considering. 

Cautious.

Alex’s pulse does something it shouldn’t. He presses harder, feels bone and sinew and whatever runs through his veins. Steady, again. 

Footsteps along the floor as Washington crosses it. The door slides shut, leaving them to the almost-dark of the deck, and in the moment it takes Alex’s eyes to adjust -- 

He blinks, pulls focus in from the blurry edges of his own vision. Washington is the only thing in the room with him. 

“I don’t think any of us can sleep soundly this far out,” Washington says. “I’ll be glad when we’ve passed through.”

“Isn’t this what we signed up for?” Alex asks, his mouth curled into a shape Washington won’t see in the low light. “Navigating the absolute edge?”

“Maybe,” Washington allows, “but that doesn’t make it any easier to be so far from everything you’ve ever known.” 

Alex glances up, sharp, but Washington’s focus is on the dark beyond them, scanning it with a familiar, well-worn wariness. Pointless -- whatever’s out there isn’t visible to any human eye, not even Washington’s. 

If he could see through the dark to what’s behind it, he’d know it was less of a threat to him than whatever is inside his own ship. 

“Is that why you’re awake?” Alex asks. 

Washington inclines his head, conceding the point. “I haven’t managed to adjust yet. I thought I’d be productive about it and make the rounds, ensure everything is in working order.”

Under Alex’s feet, the ship’s pulse goes on and on. “Is it?”

“As far as I can tell.” Washington faces him fully, turns away from the abyss like it’s that easy. Something in Alex’s chest lurches, wet. If the dark burst in through the transparent layers of hull in front of them, it could be at Washington’s throat before he realized. The observation deck is all tasteful monochrome; Washington’s blood would be black in the near-dark, it would be the brightest thing in the room when the lights came up, the whole room reeking of the insides of a dying star. 

“Hamilton.”

Alex blinks back to the present, to Washington’s throat whole and the room around them smelling like nothing at all. “Yes?”

“You should get some rest, son.” 

A prickle of unspecified feeling at the endearment, dulled. Washington and his steadfast guiding light, the brightest thing in deep space. Alex has nothing of his, of him. There’s a reason the rumors never stick. 

Strange to remember how much they infuriated him even a month ago. As if a good man’s bastard was the most monstrous thing he could be. 

Now: a scrap of Washington’s lodestar stubbornness lodged somewhere he could draw on it -- far from terrible. If he could go back maybe he would preen under Washington’s hand on his shoulder, encourage his quiet affection. Maybe it would be enough to save him. 

But he can’t go back, can’t shape himself into that person, so he says, “You’ve never taken issue with my sleep schedule before.”

“You’ve never been in deep space before. I’d be failing as your captain if I wasn’t concerned.”

“I’ll acclimate,” Alex says, a little of his old sharpness finding its way out. That’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t it something to cling to, that he’s alone with Washington in the dark and the only sharpness in his mouth is metaphorical?

“I know you will. But standing here won’t help,” Washington says, not unkind. “It’s not something you can force yourself to adjust to in one night.”

_ It doesn’t matter,  _ Alex thinks.  _ It doesn’t matter where I am, at least this way I can keep an eye on it.  _ His skull feels too small, his whole body feels too small, constricting or else trying to stretch around something expanding, growing too fast for containment. He’s going to burst out of his skin right here, best case scenario: a viscera pile of indeterminate origin. 

Worst case scenario: 

Washington takes a step forward, stops. Preserving the space between them, the boundaries Alex kept building, kept shoring up, like the threat was only ever going to come from outside. 

“Let me walk you back,” Washington says. Not precisely a command, but near enough. 

“I’m fine, sir.”

Washington doesn’t make an argument of it, just waits. Alex knows his captain well enough to recognize his self-imposed isolation is over, and every moment Washington spends here is a risk. So Alex nods, the movement stiff and mechanical, and makes for the door. Like it’s easy, to turn away. From the dark, from his captain. 

Cold sweeps up his spine, acute and burning. Something wet running down onto Alex’s upper lip -- he swipes a hand over it, tells himself he still smells iron, smells copper.

There’s a pause before Washington’s footsteps start to follow. The door slides open, bathing them in light. Alex realizes, belated, that Washington hasn’t put his back to him once. 

**Author's Note:**

> *from the dare to write challenge. prompt 317: shadow play  
> *thanks for reading! leave a kudos and comment if you liked it!  
> *find me on tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/)


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